Fire Lover by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online

racing, my grip tightened on the steering wheel. If I was a German shepherd I'd be growling and pulling at my chain."
    John circled the block, parked, pulled out his binoculars, and watched. He didn't dare call for a police unit because if it turned out to be nothing, he'd catch tons of crap from those assholes. But he knew the fire dispatcher on duty that day at Verdugo Dispatch Center, so he keyed his mike and said, "Verdugo, patrol twenty-one. Can you contact GPD and see if they have any cars near Glenoaks and Idlewood?"
    "Patrol two-one," the dispatcher answered. "Are you requesting a police unit?"
    "Not yet," John responded. "Not yet."
    "Ten-four," the dispatcher said, and then came back a moment later to say that there did not seem to be any police units on patrol in that area.
    John fired up that ugly lime-yellow beast of a pickup and headed down the street after one of the dudes began walking toward an alley. He turned the pickup around and rumbled through an alley parallel to the vatos. Then he got out and sneaked up on foot, spotting one of them standing beside a blue Toyota with its trunk open.
    He jumped back in the truck, fired it up, and in a minute or two the yellow pickup and the blue Toyota were heading toward each other, passing in the alley. He looked down into the Toyota and spotted a small TV, a blender, and several shopping bags. On top of one of the shopping bags were a camera and a clock, and those hadn't come from any supermarket! And if that weren't enough, the dude on the passenger side held a ten-inch kitchen knife by his left leg. That did it.
    He keyed the mike and said, "Verdugo, patrol two-one. Go to tac two."
    "Go ahead, John," the dispatcher responded on tac two, the less formal channel.
    And while the dispatcher's mike was open, John could hear another dispatcher laughing an "Oh shit! What now?" laugh.
    The dispatchers got their answer on the open radio mike when they heard the yellow truck's engine rev and the tires squeal as it made a screaming U-turn and peeled out of the alley.
    "Residential burglars!" John yelled into the mike. "Blue Toyota, no plates, two male Latinos, twenty to twenty-five years!"
    Shit! The Toyota spotted him closing in, then it hung a U-ee, rubber smoking, and wheeled off onto a side street. But when the ugly yellow fire truck clattered after them, the Toyota whipped it around again and roared right at him.
    He scarcely had time to jerk the wheel and get out of the way. His truck bounced and clattered over a curb with all kinds of gear crashing around the truck bed, and the Toyota's passenger laughed as they sped by. And flipped him off.
    Nobody was scared of a fireman driving something that looked like a Tijuana taxi. Well, they didn't know this fireman. He flicked on the red lights, and the chase was on, with his overloaded rig sliding and skidding and clanging around corners, and everybody on the street wondering what in hell the fireman was up to.
    "Verdugo!" he yelled into the mike, pulling out all the stops now. "They're running! Eastbound on Glenoaks! No . . . southbound now!"
    "Patrol twenty-one, patrol twenty-one," the dispatcher said. "Are you in pursuit?"
    It was unbelievable! A cop-style pursuit? Of burglars? By a fireman in a ratty yellow truck?
    John was still afraid to officially announce a cop-style pursuit. So he said, "No! I'm not in pursuit. I'm just following. Real fast!"
    Except that when he got to a busy intersection and had to pop the siren, the dispatcher heard it over the open mike and came back with, "Patrol twenty-one. Will advise Glendale PD that you're not in pursuit. Just following real fast. Riiiiiight."
    The Toyota jerked a hard left into another alley, and the driver jumped on the brakes, seemingly ready to bail out.
    John thought about that big knife as he chugged in behind them. He reached for the bag next to him. His .38 was unloaded, but he'd also stashed a .22 automatic in there. He grabbed both guns, but the burglars didn't